The men's basketball team this season magically transformed from the NESCAC bottom-dwellers of recent years, but there would be no fairy-tale ending to this team's season.
Facing Trinity on Saturday in Hartford, Conn., Tufts seemingly compounded every mistake it had made all season into one poor effort, falling to the No. 4 seed Bantams 70-47 — the team's second loss to Trinity in two weeks — and finishing its season at 13-12.
Trinity took control early in the game and the Jumbos never recovered. The Bantams shot 48.4 percent from the field and an impressive 62.5 percent from 3-point range in the first half. Tufts managed to keep it close early in the game, but a 15-0 run put Trinity up 26-8 with under five minutes to go in the half. Despite disjointed efforts by the Jumbos, the score stood at 38-21 at the break — the closest the margin would be for the remainder of the game.
"There were a lot a defense lapses on our part," tri-captain James Long, a junior, said. "All week the coaches gave us the scouting report: that all [Trinity] wanted to do was shoot 3s, and they came out and did that. We just didn't execute the defensive game plan."
"I think that it was more about us than them," tri-captain Sam Mason, a senior forward, said. "We really didn't go inside as often and early as we had planned to, and we also had some defensive letdowns as far as communication goes."
In the first half, Tufts gained a total of two points from their top three scorers: junior guard Amauris Quezada, sophomore guard Alex Goldfarb and sophomore forward Scott Anderson. The scoring struggles continued for the squad after the break, with only Long topping eight points. As a whole, the team shot just 28.9 percent for the game.
But while Tufts scrambled to find its offensive rhythm, Trinity continued to play well after the intermission. The Jumbos' defense could not contain a 46.4 percent shooting performance that included double-digit performances by three players. The deficit maxed out at 26 — at 51-25 — just over five minutes into the half, and as the domination electrified the crowd off the court, the Jumbos looked more and more rattled.
"There's definitely a mental aspect of it, but at the same time we've gotten back into games before after being down by double digits," Long said. "We all believed that we could get back into it, but we just couldn't execute and string together series of stops and scores, which you have to do when you're down by that much."
The game was bittersweet for the team's two senior tri-captains Matt Galvin and Mason. Though the outcome was less than desirable, the game marked both players' first NESCAC Tournament contest and was the ending to the first winning season of their careers.
"I'm proud of the team and what we were able to accomplish this year with so many people thinking we weren't going to be any good again," Mason said. "This year we were just barely above .500, but it's a good foundation. I think Galvin and I established a good attitude and work ethic moving forward for the rest of the guys."
Despite the poor performance on Saturday, the Jumbos will return all of their top performers in the fall along with a highly anticipated recruited class. It seems the rebuilding era is over, with Tufts set to become a very real contender in the conference.
"I think we took a big step this year," Long said. "It's tough to look at the season as a whole because this one loss is sticking with us right now, but I think in time we're going to look back and know we took a big step … I think it's on us now as upperclassmen to continue what the seniors have set up."
